‘WHAT AN EXPERIENCE’

MINNEAPOLIS — Scraping his spikes across the dirt in front of the pitching rubber, Mitch Seykora steadied himself and took a deep breath.

He was actually here. He was actually doing this.

He was actually toeing the rubber inside a Big League bullpen. He was actually preparing to take the mound and a mere 15 minutes away from starting a game on the grand stage at Target Field.

As in, the Target Field.

Before balancing himself atop the tightly-packed heap of tan-shaded dirt and uncorking his first warmup toss to catcher Ethan Armstrong, Seykora made a conscious effort to pause — if not for a fleeting moment — and soak in the moment.

This was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and he knew it.

“When I got out to the bullpen, I was like: ‘Wow, this is pretty cool’”, he said. “I mean, I am throwing where Big Leaguers warm up and throw 100-plus miles-per-hour and here I am getting ready to pitch in a game t Target Field. It’s just…getting out here, it’s surreal.”

Seykora went on to throw five solid innings against Red Wing and nearly ended the game in dramatic fashion after launching a triple that soared over the centerfielders’ head and short-hopped the base of the wall near the ‘411’ marker. The two-out rocket instantly sparked his teammates and ignited the well-traveled OHS contingent that packed the stands above the Huskies’ dugout. Most importantly, it also brought the game-winning run within 90 feet of home plate.

And 90 feet is where it would stay.

After an intentional walk and a four-pitch strikeout, Red Wing had wiggled out of another perilous jam and recorded the final out of the seventh inning.

And that was it.

With the mandated two-hour game limit having expired, the Big Nine Conference counterparts sauntered out of their respective dugouts and lined up for the usual postgame handshake with the score still deadlocked at 2-2.

Though it wasn’t the grand conclusion either side had hoped for, nor was it the finish either expected, the prevailing sentiment in the immediate aftermath of the game remained positive and upbeat.

“I still haven’t stop smiling,” Owatonna assistant coach Travis Hilstad said on Monday afternoon. “What an experience. Those guys got to be Big Leaguers for a day. How awesome is that?”

Added head coach Tate Cummins moments: “It’s a big-time blessing to get the chance to be out here. It would have been awesome to get more kids in the game, but that’s sort of the nature of a tight game like that. But they were still able to get on this field. They were still able to hang out in this dugout and still able to play in a Big League ballpark. It’s a big deal.”

A UNIQUE EVENT, A THRILLING OPPORTUNITY

After hearing through the grapevine that the Twins were actively searching for candidates to fill one the five matchups reserved for Minnesota-based teams scheduled to square off in the second annual high school showcase series, Cummins “jumped at the chance” and promptly reached out to the organization months before blueprint of the 2024 high school baseball schedule had even by charted, much less fully-completed. The long-time OHS skipper recognized just how special the opportunity was and did everything in his power to get Owatonna’s name at the top of the list.

Whatever he did, it worked.

“We found out they were looking for teams and we jumped at the chance,” he said. “We were ready for the opportunity, for our names in early and it worked out.

From there, Cummins contacted Red Wing coach Kyle Blahnik and invited his team to join the Huskies in Minneapolis — a request that was “happily agreed upon” and quickly solidified by all parties — before getting right to work coordinating the litany of tasks associated with planning his team’s trip to the Big League stadium. Initially, he spent the majority of his time focusing on promotion and community outreach before shifting his energy to ticket sales and distribution.

When all was said and done, the Owatonna baseball program had unloaded hundreds of tickets and sold out its entire inventory by the time the final week leading up to the game had rolled around.

“All the things that Tate did to make this happen is amazing,” Hilstad said. “I can’t imagine all the tickets, coordination and all the moving parts, it’s awesome. Shout out to him for everything he did to make this happen.”

Unsurprisingly, the Husky fanbase showed up in packs on Saturday and outnumbered the Red Wing contingent by at least 3-to-1, packing the first four rows behind the dugout and comfortably filling many of the seats behind the plate and down the third base line.

GAME RECAP

The Wingers started the game at the plate and snatched a 1-0 lead after stringing together a pair of two-out hits against Seykora.

Despite putting two runners in scoring position with no outs in the bottom of the first and failing to capitalize, the Huskies eventually cobbled together a run in the bottom of the second before seizing a 2-1 the lead on an RBI sacrifice fly by Gavin Saxton one inning later.

Red Wing countered quickly and punched across another two-out run in the third on an infield single that could have done much more damage had it not been for Conner Wiese’s marvelous glovework. The junior, who played all seven inning at third base for the Huskies, fully-extended his body on the play and laid out to his right after a Red Wing batter slashed a hard chopper down the line. Wiese somehow found a way to spear the ball, yank it from the webbing of his glove, hop to his feat and freeze the Red Wing baserunners without pannicking.

“He made that playing going basically into left field,” Hilstad said.

Michael Reinardy came out of the bullpen in relief of Seykora and hurled two scoreless innings.

Nathan Theis started the bottom of the first with a single and reached base three times.

“I thought they settled in nicely,” Cummins said of his team. “I thought it was well-pitched game with some good at-bats. We took some chances, and some times it works, and some times it doesn’t. I thought both sides played really good defense — I don’t think there was more than one or two errors on the board all game. We are happy. Obviously, we would have liked to get a run there in the seventh, but overall, it was just an awesome day.”